Friday, December 20, 2013

The rich. They stick together. Take for example my U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who has been silent on the worsening lack of affordable housing for low and moderate income folks and the eviction epidemic in her district.

In June her Nancy Pelosi for Congress PAC gave $2,000 to Democrat Sean Eldridge's campaign. He's the 26-year-old A-Gay husband of Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes who owns the the New Republic magazine and whose net worth is at least $600 million, according to the Financial Times. I guess Pelosi wants a chit to call in, should by some miracle Eldridge get elected to Congress to represent New York's 19th district, and that's why she made her donation.

(Are those actual voters walking with the candidate in the center? Credit: SeanEldridge.com.)

Eldridge's resume is so thin anorexic super models have more meat on their bones than the scant accomplishments he has listed on his campaign web site, where this one accomplishment gave me reason to laugh:

Sean has been a leader in the fight to reform our broken campaign
finance system and reduce the power of money and special interests in
politics.

Reduce the power of money when, according to Federal Election Commission records for the current two-year reporting cycle, he's the largest donor to his campaign with $465,000 so far from his own bank account, representing 37% of all money raised. He probably wants other candidates to have less electoral power with their fortunes, while he self-finances his campaign in a district where he has no roots.

Eldridge's carpetbagging effort hopes to unseat Republican incumbent Rep. Chris Gibson, who has taken in a total of $713,000 for the same reporting cycle with zero dollars from his personal bank account.

Yes, I know the minimum qualifications for the House of Representatives are very low, and many other sitting members have purchased their seats with personal wealth, but what exactly are the reasons why voters of New York's 19th Congressional district should cast ballots for this young and super wealthy A-Gay?